China's Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited Author(s): Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai Reviewed work(s): Source: The China Quarterly, No. 121 (Mar., 1990), pp. 94-115 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/654064 . Accessed: 27/04/2012 02:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and School of Oriental and African Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The China Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org China's Decision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited* Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai Thirty-seven years have passed since the Korean War ended in July 1953. The Korean War, which was one ofthe most dramaticevents of the cold war, resulted not only in huge casualtieson the two sides, but also in a deep wound in Sino-American relations which took more than two decades to heal. Vast amounts of researchhave been done on the war, but one important aspect- the motivation behind the decision of the People's Republic of China to enter the war- remains mysteriously masked, or at least unconvincingly explained. Why did Beijing involve itself in a military conflict with the United States, the world's most powerful country, at a time when the newly established regime needed to be consolidated?What were the factors that led the Chinese to decide that they had to enter the war on behalf of North Korea? It has been generally accepted in the west that the Chinese were motivated by a combination of Chinese xenophobic attitudes, security concerns, expansionist tendencies and the commu- nist ideology.l To what extent is this perspective historicallycorrect? What is the Chinese perspective on this issue? The purpose of this article is to try to explain from a Chinese perspective the motivation of China's leaders in making such a momentous decision, as revealedby Chinese sourcesrecently released in China. Historical Roots China's decision to intervene in the Korean War on behalf of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had its historical roots. It was the natural result of gradually developed animosity between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and what it regardedas the foreign imperialist powers, especiallythe United States, and of the fear of a threat from the latter. Over the past century or more, a quiet, self-reliantand complacent Middle Kingdom had been reduced by foreign aggressionsto a semi- colony. Its populace was repeatedlyabused and its national dignity, of which the Confucian intellectuals had been proud over thousands of years, was humiliatingly affronted. The first generation of the CCP's *Hao Yufan wishes to acknowledgesupport he received from the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation and from the HarvardUniversity Center for InternationalAffairs. 1. See Allen Whiting, China Crossesthe Yalu:The Decision To Enter the KoreanWar (Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1960), pp. 2-13. Whitingcomprehensivelyexplored the question and reachedmany conclusionswhich are still widely acceptedin the west. China's Decision to Enter the Korean War Revisited 9s top leaders, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi, were Marxist intellectuals with strong nationalist tendencies. Their determination and will to restore China's dignity and power had won them the respect and support of the people. However, since its establishment, the CCP had met hostile opposition from almost all western countries. The major western powers regardedthe CCP as a group of rebels receiving dictation from Moscow. Out of the need to wage the war againstJapan and to balance the influence of the Soviet Union, the CCP since the early 1940s had sought to establish some kind of relationship with the United States. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai stated their willingness for communist forces to be equipped by America and commanded by an American general. They even suggested going to the United States to meet President Roosevelt.2 But they were deeply humiliated when the Americans did not even bother to give Mao a reply. The Roosevelt Administration decided in favour of an "island hopping" strategy rather than landing on the Asian continent, and with regard to the Chinese mainland, Washington obviously preferred a one-sided policy of supportingthe ruling Kuomintang (KMT) in China. Immediately after the Second World War, the United States became deeply involved in domestic Chinese politics. Although Washington did not take part in a direct military way in the civil war between the CCP and the KMT, it continued to furnishthe KMT with diplomatic, economic and military assistance while attempting to mediate the KMT's conflict with the Communists.3It was during the period of 1946-49 that Mao and his associates gradually adopted a one-sided policy of leaning towards Moscow, mainly because of their ever-increasingdisappointment in the Truman Administration. Although it was becoming disappointed with the KMT and was starting to view the nationalists as hopelessly corrupted,incompetent and being without the support of the people, the TrumanAdministra- tion still refused to change its attitudes towards the CCP. President Truman saw the international communist movement, of which the CCP was a part, as monolithic and viewed Mao's force merely as Stalin's proxy. To help the KMT to wipe out communist forces, Washington gave Chiang Kai-shek's KMT government more than US$2 billion of military and economic aid in the civil war. Despite this American aid, by the end of 1948, after three crucial battles in 2. WarrenI. Cohen, "The United States and China since 1945," in WarrenI. Cohen (ed.), New Frontiersin AmericanEast AsianRelations (New York:Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 130-46. 3. For the backgroundto Americanpolicy towards China 1945-49, see Tang Tsou, America'sFailure in China, 1941-1950 (Chicago:University of ChicagoPress, 1963); Warren I. Cohen, America's Response to China: An InterpretiveHistory of Sino- AmericanRelations (New York: Wiley, 1971); Foster Rhea Dulles, AmericanForeign Policy Towardthe CommunistChina (New York: Thomas Crowell,Co, 1972); Robert M. Blum, Drawing the Line, The Originsof the AmericanContainment Policy in East Asia (New York: Norton, 1982); William U. Stueck, The Road to Confrontation, American Policy Toward China and Korea, 1947-1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress, 1981). 96 The China Quarterly North China between the CCP and the KMT forces, it was clear that the CCP was headed for victory.4 The Truman Administration decided to adopt a policy of disen- gagement and non-intervention, waiting to "let the dust settle" in China. However, under pressure from domestic Republican oppo- nents and the general public, who still favoured continued assistance to the Nationalists, the TrumanAdministration was still unwilling to approachMao, and found it necessary to continue providing some limited support for the forces of Chiang Kai-shek, to conciliate the domestic critics and the China bloc, and to obtain support for major programmesfor Europeaneconomic recovery. In April 1949, US$54 million in aid was extended to the Nationalists, and a few months later, another US$75 million was appropriated for assistance to Chiang Kai-shek's forces.5 Washington's disengagement policy was therefore gradual and cautious, and sometimes ambiguous. The Truman and Acheson disengagement policy and the non- intervention policy on the side of ChiangKai-shek were misperceived by the CCP's leadership. What Mao Zedong saw was continued American assistance to the KMT forces provided by the China Act of April 1948. AlthoughMao had noticed the ambiguityin Washington's China policy, it only deepened his suspicion and distrust of the United States. In his New Year's message in 1949, Mao Zedong wrote: The U.S. Government has changed its policy of simply backing the Kuomintang'scounter-revolutionary war to a policy of embracingtwo forms of struggle:( 1) organizingthe remnantsof the KMT's armedforces and the so- called local forces to continue to resist the People's LiberationArmy south of the Yangtze River and in the remote border province; (2) organizing an opposition faction within the revolutionarycamp to strive with might and main to halt the revolution where it is or, if it must advance, to moderate it and prevent it from encroachingtoo far on the interests of the imperialists and their running dogs.6 In late 1948, with the rapid collapse of the KMT forces in North China, CCP leaders began planning to cross the Yangtze river to liberate the whole country. Misled by the Truman Administration's attitude, Mao Zedong began seriously to consider the possibility of American intervention and a direct military confrontation between the United States and the CCP in the liberation war against the KMT.7In fact, Mao treated such a possibility as most likely to occur.8 In January and March of 1949, the CCP convened two important meetings: the enlarged meeting of the Politburo and the Second 4. Tang Tsou, America'sFailure, pp. 443-95. 5. The US$54 million was extendedfrom the unexpendedfund ofthe ChinaAid Act of 1948. It was adopted by Congressas an amendmentto the Europeanrecovery bill allocatingto the "non-Communistarea of China."See Dulles, AmericanForeign Policy, p. 36. 6. Selected Worksof Mao Tse-tung(Mao-ZedongJ (Beijing: People's Press, 1968), Vol. 4, p. 301. 7. Ibid. p. 5. 8. Ibid. China's Decision to Enter the Korean War Revisited 97 Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the CCP.